Inspiring alumni stories : testimonials of blue doctorate holders

Abstract

This booklet of testimonies retraces the career paths of doctors in marine, maritime and coastal sciences. It focuses on experiences outside the academia. It is a collective output of a European Erasmus+ project involving the universities of Brest, Gdansk, Cadiz, Split, Kiel and Malta working within SEA-EU DOC project. This project aims to broaden employment opportunities for doctors by preparing doctorate students for a wide range of career options matching the reality of the labour market. The sectors constituting the blue economy are developing very dynamically. It is, therefore, important to analyse development opportunities for PhD holders based on examples of successful careers outside the academia. The method used to examine these “success stories” was an interview. The interview analysis allowed to draw conclusions on the factors that may influence the success of doctorate holders in developing careers outside the academic sector. This, in turn, allowed to identify the key elements that should be included in doctoral training programmes and ensured that doctoral students obtain the qualifications and skills expected by employers of the current and future labour market. These interviews are used as informative material to present the diversity of employment opportunities for doctorate holders. They are disseminated through open online access on the SEA-EU platform and the partners’ websites. The main objective of the interviews is to get a picture of PhD graduates’ career path from the moment they decided to undertake PhD studies up to the point when they developed their careers. During the SEA-EU DOC project, a total of 60 doctorate holders from 6 countries were interviewed (51% of them were male and 49% female). Participants represented diverse scientific fields. The Earth sciences (41%) was the most represented field, while engineering (16%) was the least. The majority of doctorate holders worked at their current job for over three years. Most of them (77%) worked in their home country. Among the interviewed PhD holders three most popular blue economy sectors were environmental monitoring and protection (32%), offshore wind power (16%) and science communication (12%). The two least popular sectors were marine biotechnology and mineral resources (each 2%). Additionally, 22% of doctorate holders worked simultaneously in at least two sectors. This collection of testimonials presents the diversity of career paths of doctorate holders and focuses on valuable skills acquired during the doctorate that can be transferred to any work context. It is also intended to be a collection of messages sent by these doctorate holders to current doctoral students and to companies likely to hire them.